The Correlation between Occupational Unsafe Acts and Job Burnout among Workers in Kashan Metal Melting Industries 2017

Literature in workplace safety has classified the causes of occupational accidents into unsafe conditions and unsafe acts. Job burnout can lead to loss of quality and efficiency of the individual, reduce physical and mental health, and may cause to increase of unsafe acts. The purpose of this study was to investigate the correlation of unsafe acts with job burnout among workers of Kashan smelting industries.

This cross-sectional study was conducted on 112 workers of metal melting industries. The unsafe acts of them were monitored through observation and using the Tarrant’s checklist. The examination of burnout was carried out using the Maslach questionnaire. The demographic data were also collected by a researcher-made questionnaire. The results were analyzed using the Chi-square test, independent t-test, and analysis of variance.

The results indicated that 43.23% of workers’ behaviors were unsafe. The most frequent unsafe act was the fail to using personal protective equipment (38.1%), and the least frequent was inadvertency (0.07%). There was a significant relationship between smoking, work units, safety education, and working hours with unsafe acts (P < 0.05). There was no significant relationship between the dimensions of occupational burnout with unsafe acts.

The prevalence of unsafe behavior in the metal smelting industry is relatively high, and job burnout cannot be used as an appropriate indicator to predict unsafe acts in metal melting industry. Planning for safety training to workers and the setting of suitable work hours can be used as effective strategies to reduce unsafe acts.